TechXNY
The Tech Xpo was in full swing today at the Javits Center. Too bad someone forgot to tell Computer Associates, who were a premium sponsor, and had a huge booth that was...totally empty. Scary times for the industry.
Walking the floor I saw some pretty WWWACy people, including Scott Bowling and WWWAC.org veteran Larry Aronson, whom I've know for an internet Dog's age. I saw Bob Ponce, who will be interviewing me on Silicon Alley Station tomorrow at 10:30am Eastern. (You'll need the Real Player to tune in.)
I met up with Dan Briklin of Trellix, the original inventor of Visicalc, the first spreadsheet and arguably the first real application for which average people bought PCs. Talk about an industry veteran! If you're in a sentimental mood, you can download the original Visicalc here.
I also spotted famous journalist from Internet World, Byte, and many others, Dan Dern, coming from a press room. I remarked that about a million cycles ago, he had given me an Internet Paper Airplane, which was basically a beginners guide (as much of a beginner as you could be in 1994 or so) to the Net. You had to be pretty savvy to connect back then, because dialup software was still pretty hard. The airplane had, in part:
- Guideline info on how to get on the Internet (account, software, etc)
- Stuff to do when you 'get there'
- Introduction to smileys :-) and abbreviations (IMHO, ROTFL, YMMV...)
- Basic DO's and DON'T's for Cyberspace, including "Learn Netiquette While Standing on One Foot"
- Your "Snip'n'Save" Personal Internet Learner's Permit
- Dotted lines to help fold paper into working airplane
Too funny.
Thanks to Google, I see that, Funny enough, one day in 1999, Dan Briklin and Dan Dern ran into each other at Comdex! Dan and Dan went to MIT together, apparently.
Did Anyone Get the number of the Idiot who hit my car?
Actually, the person who killed the back right half of my car was nice enough to leave a note, and it didn't even have a fake number. Looks like we'll work out the details. The car damage is only money, and I wasn't in it. But what hurt me is taking time to go to body shops for someone else's mistake. Arrrgh.
8:59:40 PM 
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